"but it was a second or two before we realised what we had"". The picture shows the lights of Edinburgh in the foreground. The rocket is seen as an illuminated cloud top centre."" ""Luna 1"" was meant to crash on the Moon; however, due to a malfunction of the ground control system, the probe missed its target by 5,995 kilometers. Despite this, ""Luna 1"" still managed to collect vital information to assist in the understanding of the universe. Its goal to crash on the Moon was subsequently achieved by Luna 2 on September 13, 1959. Luna 1 Luna 1, also"
"purposes of this article. The crash landing sites themselves are of interest to space archeology. Luna 1, not itself a lunar orbiter, was the first spacecraft designed as an impactor. It failed to hit the Moon in 1959, however, thus inadvertently becoming the first man-made object to leave geocentric orbit and enter a heliocentric orbit, where it remains to this day. ! style=""text-align:left"" width="" |Mission ! style=""text-align:left"" width="" |Country/ Agency ! style=""text-align:left"" width="" |Date of landing/impact ! style=""text-align:left"" width="" |Notes Deliberate crash landings on extraterrestrial bodies These are tables of space probes (typically orbiters or components thereof) which have been"
"Luna 2 Luna 2 (E-1A series) or Lunik 2 was the second of the Soviet Union's Luna programme spacecraft launched to the Moon. It was the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon, and the first man-made object to land on another celestial body. On September 13, 1959, it hit the Moon's surface east of Mare Imbrium near the craters Aristides, Archimedes, and Autolycus. Launch was scheduled for September 9, but the Blok I core stage was shut down after it failed to reach full thrust at ignition. The booster was removed from the pad and replaced by"
"Luna E-1 No.2 Luna E-1 No.2, sometimes identified by NASA as Luna 1958B, was a Soviet spacecraft which was lost in a launch failure in 1958. It was a Luna E-1 spacecraft, the second of four to be launched, all of which were involved in launch failures. It was intended to impact the surface of the Moon, and in doing so become the first man-made object to reach its surface. The spacecraft was intended to release of sodium, in order to create a cloud of the metal which could be observed from Earth, allowing the spacecraft to be tracked. Prior"
"Luna E-1A No.1 Luna E-1A No.1 or E-1 No.5, sometimes identified by NASA as Luna 1959A, was a Soviet spacecraft which was lost in a launch failure in 1959. It was a Luna E-1A spacecraft, the first of two to be launched. It was intended to impact the surface of the Moon, and in doing so would be the first man-made object to reach its surface. Launch was originally scheduled for June 16, but delayed two days after a careless lieutenant had the booster filled with the wrong grade of RP-1 propellant. Luna E-1A No.1 was launched at 08:08 UTC"
"not assigned a Luna number. Those that failed in low Earth orbit were usually given Cosmos designations. The estimated cost of the Luna programme was about $4.5 billion. ""Luna 1"" (January 1959) missed its intended impact with the Moon and became the first spacecraft to fall into orbit around the Sun. ""Luna 2"" (September 1959) mission successfully hit the Moon's surface, becoming the first man-made object to reach the Moon. ""Luna 3"" (October 1959) rounded the Moon later that year, and returned the first photographs of its far side, which can never be seen from Earth. ""Luna 9"" (February 1966)"
"mission, NASA correctly identified that it had been an attempted Lunar impact mission, however they incorrectly believed that it had been launched on 16 June, two days before its actual launch. Luna E-1A No.1 Luna E-1A No.1 or E-1 No.5, sometimes identified by NASA as Luna 1959A, was a Soviet spacecraft which was lost in a launch failure in 1959. It was a Luna E-1A spacecraft, the first of two to be launched. It was intended to impact the surface of the Moon, and in doing so would be the first man-made object to reach its surface. Launch was originally"
"Luna E-1 No.3 Luna E-1 No.3, sometimes identified by NASA as ""Luna 1958C"", was a Soviet spacecraft which was lost in a launch failure in 1958. It was a Luna E-1 spacecraft, the third of four to be launched, all of which were involved in launch failures. It was intended to impact the surface of the Moon, and in doing so become the first man-made object to reach its surface. The spacecraft was intended to release of sodium, in order to create a cloud of the metal which could be observed from Earth, allowing the spacecraft to be tracked. Prior"
"impact upon the Moon was when the Luna 2 probe crash-landed just to the west-southwest of the crater rim on September 13, 1959, according to the claim of one Hungarian astronomer who claimed to see an explosion of dust. The crater is named after the ancient Greek Autolycus of Pitane. It was given its name by Giovanni Riccioli, whose 1651 nomenclature system has become standardized. It was first known as ""Autolicus"", then took its current form, ""Autolycus"". Earlier lunar cartographers had given the feature different names. Michael van Langren's 1645 map called it ""Reithae"", while Johannes Hevelius called it ""Montuniates"""
"lubricant. On January 2, 1959, as part of the Luna 8K72's Block-E stage, the engine RD-0105 finally performed its first successful mission, the launch of Luna 1. It was also the first deep space engine ignition, the first spacecraft to reach escape velocity and, while the spacecraft missed the Moon with which it was supposed to crash, it became the first human made object to enter an heliocentric orbit. On September 14, 1959, the RD-0105 propelled Luna 2 towards the Moon. It was the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon, and the first man-made object to land"
"in what he thought to be a mid-sized crater in the south of the rim of what is now Plato, between that crater (then as ""Lacus Panciroli"") and Mare Imbrium (then as ""Mare Astronomicum""). The stretch of lunar surface between Archimedes and Autolycus was the site of the crash-landing of the Soviet probe Luna 2. This was the first craft to reach the surface of the Moon, landing September 13, 1959. By convention these features are identified on lunar maps by placing the letter on the side of the crater midpoint that is closest to Archimedes. The following craters have"
"which he became the second man to walk on the Moon. 1966 NASA T-38 crash The 1966 NASA T-38 crash occurred when a NASA Northrop T-38 Talon crashed at Lambert Field in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 28, 1966, killing two Project Gemini astronauts, Elliot See and Charles Bassett. The aircraft, piloted by See, crashed into the McDonnell Aircraft building where their ""Gemini 9"" spacecraft was being assembled. The weather was poor with rain, snow, fog, and low clouds. A NASA panel, headed by the Chief of the Astronaut Office, Alan Shepard, investigated the crash. While the panel considered possible"
"Luna 1 Luna 1, also known as Mechta ( , ""lit."": ""Dream""), E-1 No.4 and ""First Lunar Rover "", was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Earth's Moon, and the first spacecraft to be placed in heliocentric orbit. Intended as an impactor, ""Luna 1"" was launched as part of the Soviet Luna programme in 1959, however due to an incorrectly timed upper stage burn during its launch, it missed the Moon, in the process becoming the first spacecraft to leave geocentric orbit. While traveling through the outer Van Allen radiation belt, the spacecraft's scintillator made observations indicating"
"the American president Dwight D. Eisenhower with a copy of the spherical pennant as a gift. That sphere is kept at the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene, Kansas. The only other known copy of the spherical pennant is located at the Kansas Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas. Luna 2 Luna 2 (E-1A series) or Lunik 2 was the second of the Soviet Union's Luna programme spacecraft launched to the Moon. It was the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon, and the first man-made object to land on another celestial body. On September 13, 1959, it hit"
"single unmanned spacecraft designed and built by Hughes Aircraft Company. The precise location of the Surveyor 2 crash site is unknown. Surveyor 2 Surveyor 2 was to be the second lunar lander in the unmanned American Surveyor program to explore the Moon. It was launched September 20, 1966 from Cape Kennedy, Florida aboard an Atlas-Centaur rocket. A mid-course correction failure resulted in the spacecraft losing control. Contact was lost with the spacecraft at 9:35 UTC, September 22. On February 3, 1966 Luna 9 spacecraft was the first spacecraft to achieve a lunar soft landing and to transmit photographic data to"
"the vehicle assembly building, shattering its windows. The core stage continued flying for some distance until crashing into a salt lake about two kilometers from the pad. Considerable damage to launch facilities resulted from this mishap. Prior to the release of information about its mission, NASA correctly identified that it had been an attempted circumlunar imagery mission. Luna E-3 No.2 Luna E-3 No.2, sometimes identified by NASA as Luna 1960B, was a Soviet spacecraft which was lost in a launch failure in 1960. It was a Luna E-3 spacecraft, the second of two to be launched, both of which were"
"to a working lunar probe, Korolev allegedly exclaimed ""Do you think that only American rockets explode!?"" The Luna 1 mission in 1959 was intended to impact the surface, but missed by about . Nevertheless, this probe became the first to reach escape velocity and the first to go near the Moon. A subsequent attempt (Luna E-1A No.1) failed at launch, and then Luna 2 successfully impacted the surface on 14 September 1959, giving the Soviets another first. This was followed just one month later by an even greater success with Luna 3. It was launched only two years after Sputnik"
"Cosmodrome. One hundred and four seconds after launch, longitudinal resonance within the rocket's strap-on booster rockets caused the vehicle to disintegrate. This was the same problem which had caused the loss of Luna E-1 No.1 three weeks earlier. Luna E-1 No.2 Luna E-1 No.2, sometimes identified by NASA as Luna 1958B, was a Soviet spacecraft which was lost in a launch failure in 1958. It was a Luna E-1 spacecraft, the second of four to be launched, all of which were involved in launch failures. It was intended to impact the surface of the Moon, and in doing so become"
"not only the large Descent Stages of the lunar landers left behind but also tracks of the astronauts' walking paths in the lunar dust. Moon landing A Moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both manned and unmanned (robotic) missions. The first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2 mission, on 13 September 1959. The United States' Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon, on 20 July 1969. There have been six manned U.S. landings (between 1969 and"
"Moon landing A Moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both manned and unmanned (robotic) missions. The first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2 mission, on 13 September 1959. The United States' Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon, on 20 July 1969. There have been six manned U.S. landings (between 1969 and 1972) and numerous unmanned landings, with no soft landings happening from 22 August 1976 until 14 December 2013. To date, the United States is"
"1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. A torque sensor in the gyroscope used to control the pitch of the upper stage malfunctioned, resulting in control of the rocket being lost. The spacecraft failed to achieve orbit, and reentered the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. Prior to the release of information about its mission, NASA correctly identified that it had been an attempt to land a spacecraft on the Moon. However, they believed the launch had occurred on 2 February. Luna E-6 No.3 Luna E-6 No.3, also identified as No.2 and sometimes by NASA as Luna 1963B, was a Soviet spacecraft which"
"escape Earth's gravity and pass near the Moon was ""Luna 1""; the first human-made object to impact the lunar surface was ""Luna 2"", and the first photographs of the normally occluded far side of the Moon were made by ""Luna 3"", all in 1959. The first spacecraft to perform a successful lunar soft landing was ""Luna 9"" and the first unmanned vehicle to orbit the Moon was ""Luna 10"", both in 1966. Rock and soil samples were brought back to Earth by three ""Luna"" sample return missions (""Luna 16"" in 1970, ""Luna 20"" in 1972, and ""Luna 24"" in 1976),"
"are generally lighter in weight than a rocket with equivalent capability. The Soviets succeeded in making the first crash landing on the Moon in 1959. Crash landings may occur because of malfunctions in a spacecraft, or they can be deliberately arranged for vehicles which do not have an onboard landing rocket. There have been many such Moon crashes, often with their flight path controlled to impact at precise locations on the lunar surface. For example, during the Apollo program the S-IVB third stage of the Saturn V moon rocket as well as the spent ascent stage of the Lunar Module"
"instruments to study the Moon and interplanetary space; including a magnetometer, geiger counter, scintillation counter, and micrometeorite detector. ""Luna 1"" was designed to impact the Moon, delivering two metallic pennants with the Soviet coat of arms that were included into its package. This mission was eventually accomplished by ""Luna 2"". ""Luna 1"" was launched at 16:41 GMT (22:41 local time) on 2 January 1959 from Site 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome by a Luna 8K72 rocket. ""Luna 1"" became the first man-made object to reach the escape velocity of the Earth, along with its carrier rocket's upper stage, which it"
"the United States include incidents near Atlantic City, New Jersey (1957), Savannah, Georgia (1958) (see Tybee Bomb), Goldsboro, North Carolina (1961) (see 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash), off the coast of Okinawa (1965), in the sea near Palomares, Spain (1966, see 1966 Palomares B-52 crash), and near Thule Air Base, Greenland (1968) (see 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash). In some of these cases (such as Palomares), the explosive system of the fission weapon discharged, but did not trigger a nuclear chain reaction (safety features prevent this from easily happening), but did disperse hazardous nuclear materials across wide areas, necessitating expensive"
"Luna E-3 No.1 Luna E-3 No.1, sometimes identified by NASA as Luna 1960A, was a Soviet spacecraft which was lost in a launch failure in 1960. It was a Luna E-3 spacecraft, the first of two to be launched, both of which were lost in launch failures. It was intended to fly around the Moon on a circumlunar trajectory in order to image the surface of the Moon, including the far side. The E-3 spacecraft were similar in design to the E-2A which had been used for the earlier Luna 3 mission. However, they carried higher resolution cameras, and were"
"on 18 June 1959 atop a Luna 8K72 carrier rocket, flying from Site 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The launch once again ended in failure when the booster suffered a failure of the yaw gyro and veered off its flight path. Ground control issued a manual shutoff command at T+153 seconds. The spacecraft was intended to conduct experiments during its flight towards the Moon. It would also have released gaseous sodium, in order to create a cloud of the metal which could be observed from Earth, allowing the spacecraft to be tracked. Prior to the release of information about its"
"of astronauts who were sent to the Moon on the Hermes II mission, a secret operation in response to Olav Welhaven's research in which the team were ordered to plant a device called the 'Lunar Ray' on the surface. However, the mission had gone awry; a lunar eclipse had occurred before the team had reached the surface, causing the two astronauts on the outside of the craft to instantly go insane. With the Lunar Ray still attached to the lander, Isaac had piloted the craft back towards Earth, where it crashed into Sasimy Woods - directly on top of the"
"the asteroids and comets. Beginning with Luna 2 in 1959, the first few spacecraft to reach the lunar surface were impactors, not landers. They were part of the Soviet Luna program or the American Ranger program. In 1966, the Soviet Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to achieve a lunar soft landing and to transmit photographic data to Earth. The American Surveyor program (since 1966) was designed to determine where Apollo could land safely. As a result, these robotic missions required soft landers to sample the lunar soil and determine the thickness of the dust layer, which was unknown before"
"to a guidance malfunction of the Blok A core stage, leading to RSO destruct. Luna 2 was launched by a Luna 8K72 12 September 1959. It was the first spacecraft to impact the lunar surface. The final successful launch of a Luna 8K72 took place 4 October 1959. The Luna 3 spacecraft took the first photographs of the far side of the Moon. The eighth flight of a Luna 8K72 (March 1960) ended 435 seconds after launch when the Blok E upper stage developed insufficient thrust, causing the Luna probe to reenter the atmosphere and burn up. The ninth flight"
"in 1958. Pilot error resulting in controlled flight into terrain was blamed for five fatal Comet 4 accidents: an Aerolíneas Argentinas crash near Asunción, Paraguay, on 27 August 1959, Aerolíneas Argentinas Flight 322 at Campinas near São Paulo, Brazil, on 23 November 1961, United Arab Airlines Flight 869 in Thailand's Khao Yai mountains on 19 July 1962, a Saudi Arabian Government crash in the Italian Alps on 20 March 1963, and United Arab Airlines Flight 844 in Tripoli, Libya, on 2 January 1971. The Dan-Air de Havilland Comet crash in Spain's Montseny range on 3 July 1970 was attributed to"
"Lufthansa Flight 502 Lufthansa Flight 502 was a scheduled flight from Hamburg, Germany to Buenos Aires, Argentina on 11 January 1959. The flight was being operated by a Lockheed L-1049G Super Constellation (registration D-ALAK). On the leg between Senegal and Brazil the Super Constellation was on approach to Rio de Janeiro–Galeão International Airport when it crashed near Flecheiras Beach just short of the runway. All 29 passengers and seven of the ten crew were killed. It was the first fatal accident involving Lufthansa since it was formed in 1955. The aircraft was cleared by air traffic control to descend to"
"crash; and, the 1953 ""Tip Tow"" crash. On 11 April 1950 a B-29 departed Kirtland Air Force Base at 9:38 p.m. and crashed into a mountain on Manzano Base approximately three minutes later, killing the crew. Detonators were installed in the nuclear bomb on the aircraft. The bomb case was demolished and some high-explosive (HE) material burned in the gasoline fire. Other pieces of unburned HE were scattered throughout the wreckage. Four spare detonators in their carrying case were recovered undamaged. There were no contamination or recovery problems. The recovered components were returned to the Atomic Energy Commission. Both the"